Sylvia‘s Art Journey

 More or less taking part in Sketchbook Revival this month, I came across some "recovering perfectionists" among the teachers again. My impression is that their alleged former perfectionism has turned to the exact opposite. As if they try to draw and paint as bad as possible now. For the artists in Sketchbook Revival a sketchbook is obviously nothing more than a place to "play" and make a mess. "Use your non-dominant hand."  No, I won't. I dare to use the hand I have trained to draw and paint. And I don't want to make a mess in my sketchbooks. I want to make nice drawings and paintings. I don't strive for photorealism or any kind of perfection, but I aspire to achieve as good a result as I can without stressing myself.  Most of those sessions seem to be made for people who just want to have fun without really wanting to learn something.  This anti-perfectionism is just the flip-side of perfectionism. Just do as well as you can and let perfectio...

 Some people say - only half jokingly, I'm sure - buying art supplies and using them are two different hobbies. They end up collecting supplies they rarely use. A lot of them were bought impulsively. Someone else used them to great effect in a YouTube video or they showed up new and shiny in the art shop of choice. And you react like a kid in a candy store.  Well, money is limited and it's a pity if art supplies are not used. So we should only buy what serves the real hobby - being creative. First of all, don't put those seductive items directly into the cart. Before you look twice that email confirming your order arrives. Put them on your wishlist and let them settle there for a while. Come back when that first urge is gone. Then let reason take over. Do you really need this? Can you afford it? Why do you even want it? Does it provide added value? Will it improve your creative work? Does it fit your process? Will you actually use it?  If not only your heart, but also you...

 A few days ago I bought a tripod for my iPhone. I had been thinking about buying one for a while. I had looked online, not knowing what I should get. So I finally went into a shop and asked for advice. I came home with something that suits my needs and wasn't even expensive.  Yesterday I tried it out, got it set up and filmed a sketchbook flip-through. The third attempt was successful, everything being in sight. I can't stream to another device while filming, but still this is a game changer. No weird setup with stacked books necessary any more.  Here is my little video, no talking, just some calm music:  https://youtu.be/xXYK6i95seo?si=fbM6uWq_Wnc6-iT9

 There has been a tendency in the recreational art community for quite a while that says having fun is the most important aspect of making art. That what you create doesn't have to be pretty or good, that it even can be messy. The messier, the merrier, one could think. And while I agree to a certain extent, I think that this mindset is often exaggerated.  In online workshop after online workshop people are encouraged to play, be messy, use the cheap stuff and not worry about the outcome. Which often looks like done by a frustrated school kid. Not all workshops are like this and not all sessions in such workshops are like this. Some of the stuff made that way even looks good.  But there is too much of this mindset spread. People are taught to scribble and doodle - one should think every little kid can do this - and be happy with that, while some alleged deeper meaning is projected into it. What is supposed to be freeing can also be limiting. If you're actually happy playin...

  I have started to set up a kind of   bullet planner   for 2026. I want to use it instead of a bought planner or calendar. As I don't have a ton of appointments and to-dos to plan, it is going to be rather minimalist. Probably I will not draw in it, but just decorate it a bit with stickers. I have my sketchbooks for drawing and painting. At the beginning I have monthly overviews where I put in holidays and birthdays. I have a single to-do page right now for things I want to do sooner or later. I will add weekly pages as I need them, as soon as there is an appointment or to-do in this week. The trick is that I use a ring binder for it, so I can add pages and remove pages and move them where I need to. I can add more content when I need it and put it where I want it. No empty pages, but content in perfect order.  I will see where it leads.

 I have chosen the two books I have been working with lately because I like the subjects and the styles of those tutorials. Both provide templates you can trace, so you don't have to draw the linework yourself. Seems a lot of people like to paint nice scenes, but don't want to have to draw, which is a pity. I, of course, do my own drawing. Doing this I often change things a bit. I don't copy the original, I get inspired by it. You still see the influence of the original clearly, but my version has a lot of my own style. I guess it's a sign of not being a beginner anymore. I am able to make my own decisions, because I don't follow tutorial after tutorial. I have started early on doing my own thing. Still it's nice to have some inspiration from such books in between. 

 There is nothing like preparing a new sketchbook after you have finished the previous one. I like to decorate the insides of the front and back cover with stickers. One that says „Sylvia‘s sketchbook no. x“ and some simply for decoration. After filling the first page I also add the month I started it. After filling the last page I then add the month I finished it.  The stuff on the right is just digital. 

The colour in my watercolour set I have used the least is PR101 - English red / Venetian red. It was in my original standard set. It’s certainly good for painting terracotta objects or red bricks, but what else? If I want a redish brown I can use a more neutral brown like sepia or burnt umber and mix in a little warm red. What to use it for? So, I have gone ahead and mixed it with most of the colours in my palette. I tried to add just a touch of it to the respective colour and also to get a reasonable hue. Here are the results. Mixing colours from top to bottom and left to right are: buff titanium, jaune brilliant dark, lemon yellow, cadmium yellow medium, permanent red orange, cadmium red light, ruby red, ultramarine, helio cerulean, brilliant green (phtalo green), sap green, green earth, may green, yellow raw ochre, burnt umber.  Well, I will keep it in my palette as long as it lasts, mainly mixing it with the burnt umber here or there. The mixes with the reds are not bad, either...

 During the next weeks I should not experience a lack of inspiration. Today, a two week free mixed media workshop started online. Another online workshop will start at the end of May, Sketchbook Revival. Not all sessions of these workshops will interest me enough to create, but I will certainly get something out of them.  Also I was notified that a book I suggested to my library will be purchased, so I can get it soon. It is filled with cute drawing and watercolour projects. 

 I have borrowed a book from the library with 20 step by step tutorials. The projects are lovely creative illustrations. They allow me to combine drawing and painting. Three pieces are already done. More to follow. I wouldn’t want to do this all the time, making what others suggest. Normally, I like to do my own thing. But I like not having to search for inspiration for a change. Just deciding what project to do next. I also allow myself to change small details. After this I plan to ask the library to buy another, similar book for me to borrow. 

I love working in sketchbooks. I start on the first page and fill it in order from front to back. I always date my pages. My sketchbooks are numbered. They are like chronological albums. The insides of the covers are decorated with pretty stickers. Right now I have a watercolour sketchbook and one with drawing paper.  And no, I don't have fear of the first page.  There are so many more pages to fill. Some will turn out great, some less so, and that's fine. I mainly draw and paint at the weekend. I am not an artist who creates stuff that takes many hours to complete. My subjects vary. There’s not that one thing I do. Apart from not being into portraits and characters, almost anything can appear in my sketchbooks. I like to draw realistically, but have also started to experiment with some partly abstract pieces. I do this for myself, so I am free to create what I like. I want my work to be good and beautiful, but the process is what matters.

 I haven’t been here for a while - or so I thought. I wasn’t aware that it was that long. Anyway, I still draw and paint. Still filling sketchbooks. Not much has changed in the meantime. I have started buying watercolours in tubes, but then fill them in pans, gradually changing my colour palette a bit.  My command of watercolour has certainly improved. Learning by doing is essential.  I will see if I find something to write here again every now and then. 

I‘ve been thinking more about cool and warm blues.  Let’s take the colour wheel and put that pure blue at the bottom, just for practical reasons. This pure blue is the coolest of the cool, super cool. On the opposite side we habe orange, this should then be the warmest. On the top left and top right we have pure red and pure yellow. They are warm, I would say equally warm, judging from their distance from the orange. No one doubts that if you put even a little bit of blue into that pure red or that pure yellow you cool them down. If you put some yellow into the red or vice versa, you make them warmer. So you can always say if, for example, a red is warm relative to pure red or cool relative to pure red. This is easy.  But for the blue it means that if you put a little red or a little yellow in it you make the blue warmer, because both red and yellow are warm colours. So relative to pure blue all other blues are warm blues. So you can only say if one blue is cooler or warmer th...

There is a problem with using the terms cool colours and warm colours when explaining colour mixing. Some people consider a blue that leans towards red a warm blue and a blue that leans towards green a cool blue. I am not sure why they do so, but it doesn’t make sense to me. Blue is considered a cool colour. If you mix in a warm colour like red, it gets warmer. If you mix in another cool colour like green it doesn’t get warmer, but stays cool. The good thing is that these labels aren’t important when deciding what colours to mix to get a certain effect. You just have to have a look at the colour wheel. Mixing colours that are far away from each other results in dull, muddy colours. Mixing colours that are close together results in brilliant colours. Both effects can be just what you want. Some people mix their browns and greys by mixing complementary colours.

 If you want to start painting, you had better have some knowledge of colour theory, at least some basic one. Well, you could buy lots of different colours and use them as they are, but that would be very expensive and not practical.  With just the basics you can already tweak your standard colours a bit. Want your red more orangey? Mix it with a little yellow. Want to make violet from your blue? Mix the blue with a little bit of red. And there is nothing wrong with already having a green and an orange and maybe also a violet in your palette. And some browns. With this you already have quite some options.  The next step would be to understand that there are warm and cool versions of basic colours. A warm red leans towards orange, a cool one towards violet. A warm blue leans towards violet, a cool one towards green. A warm yellow leans towards orange, a cool one towards green. If you want to, say, mix a good, brillant violet, mix a warm blue and a cool red. They both alrea...

  So long ... ... and thanks to those who really liked my posts. I have found that for a small creator like me posting my work on #Instagram is pointless. If not even the relatively few followers I have regularly see my posts, then what am I doing here? My life and my creative practice don’t depend on me sharing my work. It would be nice if some people found pleasure in looking at my modest drawings and paintings and maybe even got a bit of inspiration from them. But if not, so be it. As long as I find joy in drawing and painting, everything is fine. I am going back to what I originally created this account for, following people whose art I like. Yours, Sylvia

Yesterday I bought a set of watercolours, a box with 12 half pans that can hold 12 more. They are great if you want something more transparent rather than the opaque gouache. So now I have quite some options with which to fill my sketchbooks. I can choose one or the other or combine them. Or combine the watercolours with coloured pencils.  I also bought a watercolour sketchbook that I will use when my mixed media sketchbook is finished.  All I need now is lots of ideas what to paint. 

I have bought some Schmincke Designers Gouache and some Hahnemühle watercolour paper. I need to start practising with the good stuff, because my older niece has asked me to paint something for her 16th birthday in October. So I have done this little painting in my mixed media sketchbook today. The paint is great, so much smoother and easier to handle than the cheap stuff I have used so far. After getting to know it better and practising a bit I will also test the new paper. I‘m looking forward to more painting adventures.

I have started to experiment a bit with painting. Until recently I stayed away from wet media for different reasons. My sketchbooks are not really made for wet media, I couldn’t imagine handling much water on paper and I liked the feeling of something stable like pencils and pens gliding over the paper. Now I have some cheap opaque paint and a set of synthetic water brushes. I think it were Jessica Wesolek‘s classes on Skillshare that made me wonder if I should try it. She shows how she controls watery paint in her sketchbooks. Also, I‘m not very patient with covering big areas in coloured pencil. My new brushes provide enough stability to feel comfortable. The paints are actually not so bad. I will go on experimenting with them and then see if I may try some good gouache.

One of my Procreate drawings is being featured on Liz Kohler Brown‘s Instagram feed @ ipadartistsanddesigners . I had decided to post it on IG after it had got a good amount of likes in her Facebook group. The featured version got at least more likes than I have ever got on my IG feed. So I guess my work can‘t be all that uninteresting. It probably won’t bring me tons of followers, but certainly a bit of encouragement. And who knows, one or the other person may visit my feed because of it.